Tips to Running a Business with Your Spouse & Partner
Running a business with your spouse or partner inevitably has its challenges. We (Brent and Maggie) have worked in the same company for ~10 years and co-own Local Union Consulting. There are a lot of risks when owning a business with your spouse but the rewards can be worth it.
Whenever we meet another partner-run business, we’re automatically asked, “how do you run a business with your partner without it ruining your relationship?”
The truth is… there’s no perfects solution, but we’ve created (& tweaked) systems and processes that allow our business to bloom, while positively impacting our personal relationship. Combined with patience and grace, running a business with a partner can be a fun adventure!
Here’s our top four suggestions for creating a work environment that’s conducive for relationships:
Set priorities and objectives each week
Keeping informed on important business topics and aligning with your partner is critical to your business success. In our personal lives, it’s easy to assume we know what’s top of mind for our spouse or partner (and typically we are right). Yet for your business, it’s critical both partners are on the same page as we often have clients and employees who count on us.
We’ve found spending 30-45 minutes every Monday, to go over weekly key objectives and responsibilities for each individual help both of us stay informed. We create an environment of open dialogue and allow each other to ask any question (nothing is off the table).
The key to this step is that once we know what we need to do, we separate and are each responsible for what we set out to do. We’ll check in briefly throughout the week, but it’s mostly centered around support to see if the other needs help rather than micro-managing your partner.
Have clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each partner
During the beginning of our business, when there was not enough unique client work, Maggie and Brent would jointly implement a project and both attend calls or meetings. We attempted to evenly split work 50/50. This ended up being frustrating because neither party was in the lead. We would just question the direction the other wanted to go and it got confusing even for our clients!
For example, we would rotate who was in charge of social media posts but that led to our audience hearing a different voice. Plus it took Brent 2x longer to create content than Maggie. Ultimately, we reviewed all of the activities in our business from social media, to generating customer leads, to administrative work and clearly defined who is in the lead for that content.
Today, Maggie handles social media content while Brent manages Quickbooks and invoicing clients. As for client work, we have our own unique skills and defined who would be in the lead for various types of projects. While we have some large projects that involve both of their skill sets, we still find ways to ensure we’re not duplicating meetings or efforts.
Have a business conversation “trump card”
Business talk bleeding into personal life is a challenge for us. Brent could talk about business 24/7 but for Maggie, nothing shuts down romance quicker than our biz talk. This is the most dangerous challenge to our relationship as talking, or getting excited, about business happens well past the 9-5. If not careful, it’s easy for one (or both) partner(s) to feel like work has superseded the relationship.
We see this the most when one, or both, of us are particularly excited about a new client or project. We want to bring it up and share our excitement with the partner. But it’s not always easy to know where our partner is emotionally and mentally.
So we created a family rule: a conversation trump card.
One partner can shut down business talk. At any time. No questions asked. The trump card is honored like the holy grail!
It’s based on respect and there are no penalties or resentment. It’s a quick way for each of us to acknowledge that it’s too much business talk for one day and we’ll pick it up tomorrow. All we say is “That’s great, can we pick it up tomorrow and have no more business talk tonight?”
Keep open communication & remember what's most important: your relationship
Issues are magnified, particularly in the beginning or when money is involved. The startup phase is also the most stressful because you have passion & ideas, yet not much to show besides sweat equity. It’s a lot of pressure to provide for yourself and your spouse - any potential failure can feel magnified when it’s two of you!
Keep open communication with your partner and remember your spouse in a work relationship may differ from your spouse “at home.” Think of it as learning a new faucet of their personality!
And we promise, it does get easier with time, as you shift and evolve the business & relationship. For us - we no longer need to play the “trump card” as much because we’ve learned to read new verbal and non-verbal clues in our relationship.
Tell us - what are the biggest challenges working with your partner or spouse?
While we will not help with any spousal issues, we can help with creating a framework and processes to set you and spouse up for a successful business so you can spend more time focusing on the personal relationship. And don’t forget, solo entrepreneurship can get lonely at times so be thankful you have a partner and best friend by your side as you build your dream business.